A consortium of foreign investors agreed on Thursday to start joint gas and gas condensate exploration in western Uzbekistan , project participant LUKOIL said in a statement.
The Russian oil giant said that other consortium members included Uzbekistan's state oil and gas holding Uzbekneftegaz, state-run Korea National Oil Corp, Malaysia's state oil firm Petronas [PETR.UL] and China's state oil firm CNPC.
It gave no cost of the project, but said that all the consortium members were entitled to equal shares in the venture, which will carry out geological exploration works in Uzbekistan's sector of the drying Aral Sea. It said the consortium members would sign a production sharing agreement in 2006, but gave no further detail.
Uzbekistan, a largely agrarian Central Asian state of 26 million, enjoys ample reserves of energy resources and metals. But the state tightly regulates the economy and investors have been largely bypassed the nation since its independence in 1991.
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